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But the question is, what would've been a better time to reveal the purge than this?

SCE are just getting put in the fridge until they can sell new models for the same unit when they are relevant for the edition, Skaven are on a similar case, we don't know yet if Cultists are just gone from AoS range or the whole range

How will this affect GW? we will forget about it tomorrow? when the Sacrosanct chamber finally finds a cure for the curse?

40K players are also wondering what does this means for them, for their minis getting wiped in a snap: those Aggressors you have? nah-uh, here some Aggressor in Gravis² are the way to go now.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

I'm surprised about the Prime actually. He seems a prime candidate for a centrepiece redo.

Get it

 CMLR wrote:
Warcry and Underworlds culling for StD (now this hurts the most if they are not just removing the warscrolls and they are just deleting the models from their other games ranges),

On the webstore, while the Stormcast and Skaven stuff is marked 'Last Chance to Buy', the Chaos boys are not - potentially this means the models will remain for Warcry use, but just be moved out of the AoS battletome. Alternatively, GW didn't update the webstore correctly.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 CMLR wrote:
Warcry and Underworlds culling for StD (now this hurts the most if they are not just removing the warscrolls and they are just deleting the models from their other games ranges),

On the webstore, while the Stormcast and Skaven stuff is marked 'Last Chance to Buy', the Chaos boys are not - potentially this means the models will remain for Warcry use, but just be moved out of the AoS battletome. Alternatively, GW didn't update the webstore correctly.

That's how i read it. They're being retired from the STD tome, not Warcry itself.

I'm not surpsied - or sad - to see the Warcry units disappear from the STD tome. They added a lot of very samey bloat and the mix of base sizes and weapon profiles made them a bit cumbersome to use. I hope they stick around for Warcry though because the models are great and in their home game they have more room to differentiate themselves from one another.

I *am* a bit surprised they are removing Khagra though, especially since I don't see any of the early Stormcast teams being removed. My fingers are crossed that it means we are going to see resculpts of Khagra and her sister as character models for STD, but I doubt I'm that lucky.

Stormcast eternal bloat is GWs own fault.
I think they worked around the issue in 10th ed primaris marines by making weapon variants just count as the same stat profile.

They could keep the old models viable for use but redo the model kits for new players going forward.
They have done it many, many times before.
Such as being able to use cadian models from 1996 and 2024.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Imagine retiring the completely up to date Clanrats and Stormvermin and leaving in the gak Plague Monks

I feel like the path to this decision is fairly clear. They want to concentrate Skaven down to the most popular subfaction(s), which they have determined is Skryre. Maybe with a side of Moulder, but if the new beasts are all implanted and cyberneticized out their asses they'll arguably be more Skyrye-coded than Moulder. Either way, there aren't really any "Skryre troops" and a starter set needs plenty of troopy models, so instead of updating the Plague Monks they decided to retire and redo the perfectly-serviceable Clanrats and Stormvermin.

I just hope the new Clanrats and Stormvermin aren't festooned with implants etc. and are still solidly giving "generic".

 Altruizine wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Imagine retiring the completely up to date Clanrats and Stormvermin and leaving in the gak Plague Monks

I feel like the path to this decision is fairly clear. They want to concentrate Skaven down to the most popular subfaction(s), which they have determined is Skryre. Maybe with a side of Moulder, but if the new beasts are all implanted and cyberneticized out their asses they'll arguably be more Skyrye-coded than Moulder. Either way, there aren't really any "Skryre troops" and a starter set needs plenty of troopy models, so instead of updating the Plague Monks they decided to retire and redo the perfectly-serviceable Clanrats and Stormvermin.

I just hope the new Clanrats and Stormvermin aren't festooned with implants etc. and are still solidly giving "generic".

I expect new Clanrats and Stormvermin to largely just be reposes, now that there's no longer a reason to limit themselves to models that (should) rank up.

I wouldn't complain if a few Stormvermin have some crude Skryre prosthetics to denote an element of superiority in their ranks, but there's no way GW will make Clanrats anything but generic. Skryre have their troops, and if GW want to push them as the dominant Clan then they'll just make plastic Acolytes

Honestly this also helps to explain why GW told Creative Assembly that Tzaangors in Warhammer 3 were, under no circumstances, are to get beaks despite the fans asking for it.

GW is really dead set on keeping their properties separate.

Also most of those 4chan leaks keeps coming up true....

 Tim the Biovore wrote:


I expect new Clanrats and Stormvermin to largely just be reposes, now that there's no longer a reason to limit themselves to models that (should) rank up.

This felt so much like an out-of-season April Fool's joke (they just didn't DARE to told us this on Monday, did't they?) that they might as well just repackage Island of Blood Clanrats.

Scratch that, they're just gonna reuse Island of Blood + 3 new kits at much.

Today it was the Diablo Immortal moment for GW.

Belthanos wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I
Rumor is that skaven are getting resculpted stormvermin and clanrats in AoS. The idea that they will be backportef into TOW seems to be supremely wishful thinking, especially given they just purged an entire faction from AoS to prevent crossover with TOW. The message on all this should be loud and clear that legacy factions will stay legacy.

Except vampires coming back to tow as rumour says doesn't support your theory.

Except the actual rumor is that it's a Vampire army of mousillon, and not "vampire counts" as we knew them before, so that has zero impact on my theory whatsoever.

 Overread wrote:

What I don't get is GW has the Dark Elf army sitting right there in cities of Sigmar doing NOTHING with them. The only thing they did was a token "build dark elf army expansion" once with the Daughters of Khaine. Otherwise that whole army has sat in utter limbo. Why take BoC out but leave the Dark Elf force in.

Could be that they're hoping it will keep old Dark Elf fans satisfied while GW continues to ignore Malerion?

Eumerin wrote:
Could be that they're hoping it will keep old Dark Elf fans satisfied while GW continues to ignore Malerion?

Imagine Umbraneth being the first new faction of 4th.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh lord, oh man, YouTubers already uploading themselves throwing their minis to trash bins, it's End Times all over again...

Just wait until the miniatures get their redux and become playable again (if appliable, otherwise just sell to TOW players or be mad because Cultists getting axed DO suck).

Very poor way to treat your customers. I hope this tilts some people enough that they are open to looking outside the GW cage.

There are so many great games and model ranges out there that cost less, give more, and don't make you feel like you are constantly being bent over a barrel as a fan.

 Gallahad wrote:
Very poor way to treat your customers. I hope this tilts some people enough that they are open to looking outside the GW cage.

There are so many great games and model ranges out there that cost less, give more, and don't make you feel like you are constantly being bent over a barrel as a fan.

I give them until they show the first new Clanrat, which could be tomorrow for damage control.

 Gallahad wrote:
Very poor way to treat your customers. I hope this tilts some people enough that they are open to looking outside the GW cage.

There are so many great games and model ranges out there that cost less, give more, and don't make you feel like you are constantly being bent over a barrel as a fan.

Imagine being a company that has to wait for another company to have issues to get customers. Just make a better product? Also since when are we "fans" we're consumers and GW is a business. If their business model is deleting ranges that aren't selling well then so be it.

That's if they do new Clanrats and Stormvermin and haven't decided to just go at a weird tangent and invent some new unit just to try and make sales. They're getting nothing from me, I'll stick to playing this edition with my current Skaven. Out club is well into a Path to Glory campaign and we're not rolling over for GW like happened to so many players and collections with killing off WHFB.
I've been a GW supporter since Citadel miniatures were an independent company but enough is enough. Killed off the original Squats, killed off large parts of Fantasy collection, pretty Much forced a rebasing of all the remaining troops, made a mess of 40k with 10th edition and now this. Nope they can keep 4th and we'll stick to playing current rules, which incidentally we've changed quite a bit using our own group agreed amendments.

We will see what is going to be there for Skaven on release.
Just having updated Clan Rats without a major re-design would make this announcement more strange that it already is
what reason is there to tell people things get axed just to replace them with upscaled models
(except GW hopes that people are throwing away or selling off their existing army just to realise that everything stays the same and they need to buy the same models new)

BoC players needing to rebase their army at least once every 6 years is like a meme now

 Jammer87 wrote:
Imagine being a company that has to wait for another company to have issues to get customers. Just make a better product?

you mean like the MMORPG market did not need to wait for WoW to screw up because just making a better game was enough to break the market position

 Jammer87 wrote:

 Gallahad wrote:
Very poor way to treat your customers. I hope this tilts some people enough that they are open to looking outside the GW cage.

There are so many great games and model ranges out there that cost less, give more, and don't make you feel like you are constantly being bent over a barrel as a fan.

Imagine being a company that has to wait for another company to have issues to get customers. Just make a better product? Also since when are we "fans" we're consumers and GW is a business. If their business model is deleting ranges that aren't selling well then so be it.

Now there's one. Also underlined the literad 4head.

 kodos wrote:
We will see what is going to be there for Skaven on release.
Just having updated Clan Rats without a major re-design would make this announcement more strange that it already is
what reason is there to tell people things get axed just to replace them with upscaled models
(except GW hopes that people are throwing away or selling off their existing army just to realise that everything stays the same and they need to buy the same models new)

Well liberators are also on that list and we already saw the updated models. And while they do look a bit different they are still called Liberators so the unit entry shouldn't be removed

We will see
Question will be if this is a single unit entry with different weapon options, as Spears don't really have an advantage any more with CC range going away, that are called differently in background only
Or if there will be several different units each with their own rules

From past releases both could be possible

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:


I'm surprised about the Prime actually. He seems a prime candidate for a centrepiece redo.

Yeah, he is the best/prime example of fatcast. I guess they simply do not have enough redone thunderstrike models yet or do not want to make bigger cull now to not upset SCE collectors more. In time he will be redone for sure.

I really don't like this - feels like chucking loads of stuff on the bonfire to free up production capacity for the preorder churn cycle at the expense of long-term sustainability. I've already stopped buying GW books because they have such a pitiful shelf life, easy to see their models going the same way too particularly when the designs are so idiosyncratic. You're not easily using your sacrosanct sce collection in another game.

Billicus wrote:
I really don't like this - feels like chucking loads of stuff on the bonfire to free up production capacity for the preorder churn cycle at the expense of long-term sustainability.

Look, I'm not happy about this situation for other reasons, but the Stormcast cull is very much a long-term sustainability move. The SKU bloat is a major problem for GW.

The issue here is the way GW handles the phase out for those kits, which may result in people feeling like they lost the ability to play with their collection.

 Jammer87 wrote:

 Gallahad wrote:
Very poor way to treat your customers. I hope this tilts some people enough that they are open to looking outside the GW cage.

There are so many great games and model ranges out there that cost less, give more, and don't make you feel like you are constantly being bent over a barrel as a fan.

Imagine being a company that has to wait for another company to have issues to get customers. Just make a better product? Also since when are we "fans" we're consumers and GW is a business. If their business model is deleting ranges that aren't selling well then so be it.

Imagine being a cultist consumer that won't try a different product, even if it is better.

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

Imagine being a cultist consumer that won't try a different product, even if it is better.

As much as I resonate with your point in terms of the game side of things, you'd be hard pressed to find companies out there that make better plastic miniatures.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Billicus wrote:
I really don't like this - feels like chucking loads of stuff on the bonfire to free up production capacity for the preorder churn cycle at the expense of long-term sustainability.

Look, I'm not happy about this situation for other reasons, but the Stormcast cull is very much a long-term sustainability move. The SKU bloat is a major problem for GW.

The issue here is the way GW handles the phase out for those kits, which may result in people feeling like they lost the ability to play with their collection.

They're both issues, I'm saying the "sell out preorders every week" model isn't sustainable - and not only will feeding it more production capacity just kick the can down the road, the side effect of GW making their plastic models more disposable by supporting them for shorter periods will actually harm sales of the stuff they are deeming worthy of supporting.

This is obviously the business model GW was aiming for when AoS initially released: smaller factions which can be rotated out periodically with the seasons of the game.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
Stormcasts are likely to receive updated armour kits for most of the entries, so you'll likely be able to use your old models as substitutes.

Nope. This is two editions worth of models. Unless you believe Stormcast will receive 50+ releases this edition (and zero new stuff, too, but we know Ruination is a thing and will devour at least half of releases this edition) replacing this will take at least till 6th edition and that's with minimal new things.

Half of the army (and the more interesting half, at that) is dead and buried

Groat wrote:
To be fair, the stormcast range got way too big with overlapping models far too fast - absolutely a bunch will be getting new kits and still be available and there's nothing stopping anyone from using them as a counts as for a close enough model.

Like what?

Had it been anything else, sure, you can count it as some other Stormcast with bow/spear/axe/hammer/sword, fine. But Sacrosant? They are literally magic wing of the army and nothing else in the range has similar fun/flexibility/divergent rules as them. It's like telling Grey Knight player after the army was squatted to pretend they are Ultramarines or something now and be happy you can count all these terminators as tactical squads now

But the GW idiocy goes far deeper here. They are also squatting engineers and artillery. What are we supposed to proxy them as? Thin air? Cavalry characters, gone. Frak you if you liked gryph cavalry and invested into something to lead/buff it. Dozen characters, gone (these might eventually get re-releases but I am strangely sure all these named characters won't be getting them and your models are dead anyway till GW can be arsed to make a replacement so you have rules to proxy old model as). Best looking Stormcast cavalry, all the Dracoline riders, gone. Centerpiece models, Aventis and Astreia, gone. I mean, Aventis is frakking 130$, 260$ if you bought second model to use as generic leader - that's a really big chunk of change, and even if you wanted to proxy it as something, there is nothing in Stormcast range with similar size and base, rules be damned

What is even more baffling is what is not being squatted. Why kill all the 2nd edition, still good looking models when a lot of ugly, badly proportioned models from 1st are going to stay (and seeing they are not on kill list, no refresh either)? Let's take garbage, cartoonish, ork jawed Dracoth cavalry - these are some of the worst looking Stormcast models, yet they are somehow safe, unless GW 'forgot' to put them in the picture. Cynic in me says it's their 37.5$ per model price tag as opposed to 'mere' 20$ Dracolines cost that makes them pass. Just why?

I wanted to build Dracoline wing of my army this edition, Astreia + 3/4 boxes of regular dudes as I honestly like how they look and was tired of slow melee dudes - now I either won't bother, or will buy second hand from other pissed people to make sure GW won't see any of that money. I also don't know why I bothered to grab extra starter boxes to get more artillery - silly me, I guess, not expecting brand new models I looked the look of to be gone just like that

Bravo, really good way to inspire confidence of your customers here James - and all they had to do to mitigate most of this is to say clearly what will be getting replacements soon and why they decided to ruin the best part of the army. They could also oh, not touch starter models and centerpieces (as these will upset players the most) and only announce retirement of boxes shortly after refresh models were ready - but no, that would actually require 5 minutes worth of effort to communicate with people who pay your wages!

 BertBert wrote:

 Gimgamgoo wrote:

Imagine being a cultist consumer that won't try a different product, even if it is better.

As much as I resonate with your point in terms of the game side of things, you'd be hard pressed to find companies out there that make better plastic miniatures.

for quality, not a really a problem but than it depends what you want.
Like literal miniatures for gaming, GW is not the one to use anyway. Models for painting collecting, they are good but not the best.

what they do is design, you won't find any other company doing Stormcast, same as you want find other companies doing Gundam but this is something different.
if you just want a Dragon to paint and put on the shelf, you want a Dragon to play a game with it, no problem finding better and/or cheaper alternatives in plastic to GW, if you want the Celestant Prime, of course no one else makes them

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 CMLR wrote:
Warcry and Underworlds culling for StD (now this hurts the most if they are not just removing the warscrolls and they are just deleting the models from their other games ranges),

On the webstore, while the Stormcast and Skaven stuff is marked 'Last Chance to Buy', the Chaos boys are not - potentially this means the models will remain for Warcry use, but just be moved out of the AoS battletome. Alternatively, GW didn't update the webstore correctly.

That's how i read it. They're being retired from the STD tome, not Warcry itself.

That would be my preferred outcome. There are some characterful models in those warbands and I'd rather not see them discontinued.